


Piano...ma non troppo

by moon_hotel



Category: Pop'n Music (Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_hotel/pseuds/moon_hotel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet little guest slips into Grand Hammer's room and starts to play the old piano. Hammer shows him how it's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piano...ma non troppo

**Author's Note:**

> The title means "Play softly...but not too softly."

Grand Hammer did sleep, sometimes. He disliked it, but there was little else for him to do: even a piano sometimes tired of music, especially music as vigorous as his, and after his last house-shaking recital he had fallen quickly and heavily into a dreamless sleep.

He awoke to feel someone's fingers playing gently over his keys. It didn't feel like the leaden playing of the master of the house, or the halting, amateurish practice of the daughter, who should have both been in bed by now anyway. He opened an eye slowly.

The room was lit only dimly by the moonlight, and he could barely make out a dark silhouette seated at his keys. The figure moved his fingers with an almost impossible lightness and grace, and the melody he played floated softly on the breeze from the open window. It was a rather nice thing to hear--just about the most welcoming thing someone could listen to when they were waking up.

Grand Hammer closed his eye again and relaxed, creaking as his wood frame settled. Intruders were one thing, but a quiet slip of an intruder who played the piano masterfully was another. It was refreshing to feel a virtuoso play him that wasn't Grand Hammer himself.

But as the minutes ticked by, the guest's mild taste began to wear on the old piano. Chalk it up to the weather, bad taste or fear of waking up the family, but the figure seemed unwilling to play anything above a whisper. Grand Hammer began to twitch with irritation, and when the guest segued into yet another twinkly nocturne, he couldn't take it anymore.

His hands shot up out of the body of the piano and landed with a _BLANG_ onto the keys. The figure fell over backwards and scrambled to hide, cowering behind the seat as he peered up over it. His shadowy little hands shook as Grand Hammer began to effortlessly perform riffs that would leave other musicians tripping over their fingers. It was a heavy, hard-rocking tune, and when Grand Hammer finished it off with a long, dramatic sweep from one end of the keys to the other, he settled back down with a glare that said "Now, _that_ is how you do it."

The shadow stared up at him, paralyzed. After a few moments he carefully climbed back onto the seat, looked down at the keys, reached out a finger, pulled it back, paused, folded his hands in his lap. Then he reached out again--

Grand Hammer groaned in his joints as he grabbed the figure's hands in his claws and planted them firmly down onto the keys. Firmly. Did this little slip of a thing not understand how to play a tune with actual presence? If he was going to mess around like this, the piano had half a mind to chase him out himself.

Grand Hammer took his hands away and the shadow remained in place, hesitating. Then he sat up, squared his shoulders, and began to play.

It was an improvement. It started off a little softly, but the tempo was faster, and soon it picked up and became a rollicking tune, a folk song of cold winds, late nights and horses' hooves down a country road. Grand Hammer would smile, if he could smile, and he swayed in time to the music. Perhaps this little person was a ghost!

But the door flew open and the guest darted under the piano, disappearing into the shadows as the master of the house appeared silhouetted in the doorway. "Will you stop that racket!" he shouted. "Or I'll pull out those wires of yours one by one!"

There was a chilly silence. The master stalked into the room and shut the window and, grumbling, retreated. It was a full minute before the ghost (or whatever it was) crawled out from under him and sat back on the stool, quiet and embarrassed. To tell the truth, it had kind of killed the mood.

He reached out a small finger and tapped at a key. The sound drifted away into the dark, and he shrugged. Well, it had been fun while it lasted, they supposed.

He got up off the bench (which neither bowed nor creaked under him) and stepped quietly over to the window. Then he turned, and, astonishingly, he spoke. His voice was as soft as the wind through the leaves, and it had a curiously faint quality to it, as if Grand Hammer were only imagining the words.

 _Thank you._

And then:

 _May I come back sometime?_

Grand Hammer tried to nod. It didn't go too well, so he reached out a claw and shook his hand instead. The figure smiled a small, crescent-shaped smile.

All that was left were the introductions. The piano motioned to a small brass plaque on his front, right below where one would place a sheet of music, labeled GRAND HAMMER ~ 1817. The little shadow understood, but in return he only said:

 _I'm sorry. I don't have anything quite so nice. But when I'm gone, you'll know my name._

And after a last handshake he disappeared out the window. He closed it behind himself this time, but even in the still room, a curious voice of shade and wind remained. And the old piano realized:

 _My name is Silent Room._


End file.
